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These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

In all ways: a Happy, splendid, beauteous Birthday!Sanna Rizvi, who blogs at A Dash of Sunny and hosts weekly prompt nights there, this week invites fellow-poets to celebrate her birthday with poetic wishes. Not a problem; she has become a much-loved member of the poetic blogosphere! Find more birthday poems here.

For quadrille #22 at dVerse we are asked to include the word 'scar'. It brought back a vivid memory.(Dad's legs were almost unnaturally smooth and pale, as he always wore long trousers to conceal the large bandage. Years of attempted skin grafts never took. The deep scar on the knee was from the same 10-year-old accident.)

Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides offers a new form challenge for December: the landay. As regular readers will know, I enjoy trying new forms, especially with such an opportunity to keep practising them, so you may expect to see a few more efforts here.

Note: It is clear from comments here and elsewhere that this one is not working satirically as intended, so it will need a massive rewrite later. (I greatly admire and trust Pilger, I never miss watching a serious version of the nightly news, and I do NOT recommend turning to 'bread and circuses' instead of confronting reality. [I do love Cirque du Soleil, and probably should have chosen something less beautiful and uplifting to try and make my point.])

At dVerse Poetics – Covers we are asked to do a 'cover' of someone else's poem, using their words but in some way making them one's own. I wanted to pay tribute to Michael Dransfield, but it was hard – his poems are all so perfect just as they are. In the end I decided on an erasure poem taken from my favourite, 'Patricia's Raga', using part of its subtitle as my title. (And I slightly changed the last word.) It still feels rather sacrilegious! But I hope it leads you to the hauntingly beautiful original.

The current Mini-Challenge at 'imaginary garden with real toads' is Cooking Up a Storm. This is not the luscious, foody poem requested! I call myself a 'non-cook'. But it was another opportunity to practise the trimeric, as I am doing this month. (I am breaking rules all over the place. We were asked to write a poem of four tercets, and in a trimeric the first verse has one line more – but it comes very close, so I hope I can get away with it.) PS I know how to play chess, but I always want to play it like Chinese Checkers.

15 November 2016

I’ve always loved my birthday being the 12th of November – that number, that name, beautiful in my ears. When, in my romantic teens, sweet Johnny Mathis sang The Twelfth of Never, I secretly claimed it as mine, with the private meaning that I would live forever. (Never mind the logic – I was creating my own.) In Australia, November is late Spring, warming up to expansive Summer but still leavened by breezes and cooler evenings. This year – just a few days ago – I spent my 77th birthday with a congenial friend, cruising on a boat on a tree-lined river, the weather just warm enough. Then we nourished ourselves with a concert culminating in stirring flamenco, a sunset light show projected on the water, and a colourful lantern parade after dark. In late afternoon a wild thunderstorm exploded right overhead – but we were indoors enjoying Devonshire tea just then, and it hit and ran. It only added excitement.

Small cat in the evening sprawls or curlson the newly-vacated chair at my deskor next to me on the two-seater couch,and finally on the other half of the bed.On the newly-vacated chair at my deskmy smell, my warmth, my imprinted shapeare a comfort. And, she assumes equal authority.Or next to me on the two-seater couchshe takes her place as my companionsharing the time while I watch TV, as couples do.And finally, on the other half of the bed,she asserts that she belongs, it's her home too,she has the right – also, we have the love.

2 November 2016

I can see you now, a slight girl in a slim white slip of a dress, walking past and turning to catch my eye. You remember it too, and the way our eyes locked a moment, before I turned back to my client and you walked on. Your angels told you to come back later and give me a message. 'Don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't be charging money for this work,' you said. 'You chose to help people this way. You didn't have to. You have a right to be paid.' The week before, another young woman in a different market had harangued me loudly and publicly, telling me I was wrong to charge money for spiritual work. Your message was a vindication. You told me, too, you could see when I did my readings that I was connecting directly to Source. Impulsively I asked for your phone number. Thereafter, when I myself needed a reading, I would phone and ask you. When you wanted one, you would phone me. We were bridges of light for each other. We quickly became friends. Then you wanted me to be your adopted mother, replacing that other who was harsh and cold. I probably shouldn't have agreed. Now there are times when you hear me as her. If I am puzzled, you take it as criticism. When you react, I feel attacked.It's easy to find a bridge to God, not always easy to maintain the bridge to each other.